Global Pulse Blog

In response to a 2010 World Health Organization report Working to overcome the global impact of neglected tropical diseases, this week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, 13 pharmaceutical companies, the governments of the U.S., U.K. and U.A.E. and other global organizations committed to a new, coordinated effort to advance progress towards controlling 10 neglected tropical diseases by the end of the decade and improve the lives of the 1.4 billion affected by such diseases globally. Guiding this effort, the World Health Organization released targets and a strategy, Accelerating work to overcome the global impact of neglected tropical diseases—A roadmap for implementation.

These neglected tropical diseases include:

• lymphatic filariasis
• blinding trachoma
• sleeping sickness
• leprosy
• soil-transmitted helminthes
• schistosomiasis
• river blindness
• Chagas disease
• visceral leishmaniasis
• guinea worm

Check out the related webcast and infographic

On Monday, Nov. 21^st 9:30am EST, Research!America will be webcasting a briefing on USAID and the agency’s impact on global health research and development.  The panel will be moderated by Susan Dentzer, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs, and will include representatives from USAID and several global health R&D partners from the public and private sectors (representing Product Development Partnerships – or PDPs).  Panelists include:

• Hugh Chang, Director of Special Initiatives, PATH
• Rick King, PhD, Vice President, Vaccine Design, IAVI
• Emily Moore, Vice President for Business Development, Temptime Corp.
• Wendy Taylor, Senior Advisor for Innovative Finance and Public Private Partnerships, Bureau of Global Health, USAI

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is marking its 50th anniversary as the main U.S. humanitarian relief and international development agency. This conversation regarding USAID and its global partenrs will shed insight into instrumental partnerships in global health work.

This important event will be webcast live at http://bit.ly/vWwx9o where you can also submit questions. You can also join the conversation on Twitter under the hashtag #GHPDP.

Check out our next guest blog series from The Global Health Technologies Coalition. GHTC’s Kim Lufkin traveled to Kenya recently to visit global health research projects going on there and view the impact of these projects on the Kenyan people. Below are some of her reflections, originally published on GHTC’s blog.

Some of the most incredible health research is taking place in Kenya right now. Because of this work, we are on the cusp of the most exciting new tools in global public health in recent years—the first ever malaria vaccine, gels women can use to protect themselves from HIV, new drugs for neglected diseases that affect the poorest of the poor. Kenya is also rolling out an array of lifesaving new health products that research has already made available, like HIV/AIDS drugs, vaccines to protect children from pneumonia, and insecticide-treated wallpaper that prevents malaria inside people’s homes.

During the GHTC’s recent trip to Kenya, I was fortunate to visit several of these global health research projects, most of them run by our dedicated coalition members like the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), PATH, the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), Aeras, and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

We also saw firsthand how the US is making a huge impact in health research in the country, through the work of agencies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Department of Defense (DoD).

3935 – Siaya, Kenya – Kayla Laserson is the Director of the KEMRI/CDC Field Research Station . Photo: Evelyn Hockstain/PATH.

Although we visited a range of projects, I was left with the lasting impression that much of this research is so close to producing new health tools that can lead to amazing innovations in public health. “We are on the verge of breakthroughs in malaria and in TB and in other diseases,” Kayla Laserson, director of the CDC/KEMRI Field Research Station in Kisian, said. “What we really need is continued support so we can get the job done, we can finish it, we can show the impact, we can save hundreds of thousands of lives here and globally.”

We also saw how past commitments to research are already saving lives. For example, research that led to the development of antiretroviral drugs is one of global public health’s biggest success stories.  Rister Kageha, a woman living with HIV close to the town of Kakamega, told us how these drugs had not only saved her life, but also prevented her daughter Sylvia from contracting HIV. Because of these drugs, “I expect to live long,” Rister said, adding that she also hopes for a long life for Sylvia due to the drugs that kept her daughter HIV-negative.

Rister Kageha says antiretroviral drugs saved her life. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/PATH.

And while past research has led to some health tools already in use, and current research is producing breakthroughs we could see in next five years, other innovations aren’t as far along down the research pipeline. This is why continued US support is critical to sustain the momentum around these new tools, from discovery to delivery. US support for microbicides, for example, has been vital to recent research successes, and must continue while the research continues over the next several years.

A microbicide “is one of the tools that gives us the opportunity that we could actually end the epidemic,” Elizabeth Bukusi, deputy director at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) who works with IPM, said. “I think we can move towards a complete AIDS-free generation that will completely stop the epidemic in its track using microbicides as part of the armament.” She added that the “US has been a critical partner in providing catalystic funds and also in funding a large number of the trials that have looked at microbicides. So US funding is absolutely critical to moving this agenda forward.”

The same can be said of US support for all global health tools, not just microbicides. Fortunately, if Kenya is any indication, the US has a long history of supporting research for health products like vaccines and drugs.This long history should not end anytime soon. It’s imperative that this historical leadership continues, so the groundbreaking research the GHTC saw in Kenya can produce the next generation of lifesaving health tools.

-Kim Lufkin, GHTC

Recently, we shared with you Partner’s In Health’s Program Management Guide. This resource stresses the value of partnerships between NGOs and the public health sector. Related to this idea, PIH is hosting an online discussion on  Strengthening Health Systems: The Role of NGOs taking place from November 7-11. This Expert Panel to continue the conversation with participants online and address the ways in which NGOs can best support governments to strengthen local health systems.

Hosted by GHDonline in collaboration with PIH, the panelists include:

• Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Minister of Health of Rwanda
• Ted Constan, Chief Operating Officer, Partners In Health
• Dr. Felix Kayigamba, Access Project Country Director
• Christina Bethke, Program Coordinator, Tiyatien Health
• James Pfieffer, NGO Code of Conduct author and Director of Mozambique Operations, Health Alliance International

To join the discussion, please sign up today!

On September 19-20 the High-Level Meeting at the UN General Assembly was held to discuss the possibility that non-communicable disorders (NCDs) could become a new global health priority. While many hoped that the conference would generate increased action to target chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, lung disease and heart disease as well as common underlying risk factors including tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, and inactivity, outcomes were mixed, influenced by strong economic and political factors. The meeting accomplished an elevation of attention for such diseases and laid forth a political declaration calling for national plans by 2013 to address such issues.

For more reflections on the event, tune into the Kaiser Family Foundation event - What Happened at the UN High-Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases? Diverse Perspectives on the Meeting’s Outcomes and Next Steps tomorrow Thursday, September 29, 2011 from 12:30-2:30pm EST. You may RSVP at: http://smartglobalhealth.org/outcomesUNHLM

The Director of the Office of Global Health Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Nils Daulaire, will introduce the event with a keynote address on the major achievements and outcomes of the high-level meeting, areas of unresolved tension and disagreement, and critical follow on steps over the next two years. This will be followed by a panel of diverse commentators, including:

Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, South African Ambassador to the United States
Dr. Trevor Gunn, Senior Director of International Relations at Medtronic
Dr. Peter Lamptey, President of Public Health Programs, FHI 360

WHO Photo

Phots from the UN website

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Global Health Policy Tracker provides brief overviews of key congressional, administrative, and budgetary actions, including the status of legislation, policies and programs, and government reports and hearings. This online tool is newly updated and allows users to quickly find and track the latest developments on U.S. global health policy issues such as:

• The House State and Foreign Operations Appropriationsbill for Fiscal Year 2012;
• Movement on the Foreign Relations Authorizations Acts in the House and Senate; and
• A Government Accountability Office report on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

The Policy Tracker is a great feature of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Global Health Gateway, an online source for information on the U.S. role in global health, with policy analysis, polling and other research; daily global news synthesis via the Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report; and country-level data through Kaiser’s Global Health Facts.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 2.4 million children die from vaccine-preventable disease yearly. On a domestic level, recent coverage of the largest US measles outbreak in the past fifteen years has been in the headlines with much discussion of voluntary refusal of immunization in the United States. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that from 1991 to 2004, the number of unvaccinated children more than doubled in states allowing philosophical exemptions. On the other hand, children in middle- and low-income nations often do not receive immunizations because of lack of access. According to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) 33% of all unvaccinated children under one-year-old live in China and India, and another 47% of unvaccinated children live in middle-income countries, with only 17% living in low-income countries.

Two studies from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health were recently published in Health Affairs‘ June issue on Strategies for the Decade of Vaccines. The studies examined the impact of expanding immunization against pneumococcal pneumonia; Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib);  bacterial meningitis; diphtheria; pertussis; tetanus; measles; rotavirus and malaria to cover 90% of children in 72 countries. They found that increasing vaccine development and delivery over the next 10 years in these 72 countries could prevent 6.4 million children from dying with an economic savings of $231 billion in the value of statistical lives saved and over $151 billion saved through reduced treatment costs and increased productivity. The issue brief audiocasts offer more insight into these and other contents of the June issue.

From the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website

While this looks promising, another study from the GAVI Alliance suggests that developing nations will be challenged to pay for expanded vaccine delivery without substantial outside support. In order to procure the projected benefits of increased immunization efforts, creative vaccine financing strategies will be needed. One such effort comes from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s commitment over the current decade–the Decade of Vaccines–to promote childhood immunization in the developing world.

The UN Population Division recently revised its estimate for global population, editing its initial projections that the world’s population would level off at 9 million by 2050. The new increased estimates suggest that the global population will reach 10.1 billion by 2100. Much of the jump is attributed to growth in 58 high fertility countries in Africa, Asia, Oceania & Latin America.

Rachel Nugent has an interesting take on these new estimates and the methods behind them in her recent op-ed published in the New York Times International Edition. She suggests that we think about how fertility and mortality differentially affect population levels and growth rates instead of thinking about “population.”  Additionally, she suggests that discussions of population growth consider how effective family planning policies can lead to lower fertility and therefore reduce maternal and child mortality. This approach, she suggests, is more effective in bringing about actual change.

The Kaiser Family Foundation will hold a live, interactive webcast tomorrow, Thursday April 21, 2011 at 11am EST on Congress and global health as part of their U.S. Global Health Policy: In Focus webcast series. This hour-long interactive session will feature three global health policy experts:

• Beth Tritter, Managing Director, The Glover Park Group; Former Legislative Director for Congresswoman Nita Lowey, Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations.
• Todd Summers, Senior Advisor for Global Health, ONE Campaign.
• Allen Moore, Senior Advisor for Global Health Security Program, Stimson Center, and Adjunct Professor in Global Health, George Washington University; Former Deputy Chief of Staff and Policy Director for Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
• Jennifer Kates, Moderator, Vice President and Director, Global Health & HIV Policy, Kaiser Family Foundation.

They will examine the new legislative landscape of the 112th Congress and the ways in which recent changes will impact global health programs and foreign assistance.

You can watch the live studio webcast on kff.org. Viewers can also email questions before or during the live webcast at infocus@kff.org.

During a recent Duke Global Health Institute talk as part of Global Health Week 2011, Ugandan physician and HIV/AIDS pioneer Peter Mugyenyi gave a talk on the unresolved AIDS crisis in Africa. In his talk, Mugyenyi reiterated that, although progress has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the epidemic is far from over. He emphasized that the implementation of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have played large roles in saving the lives of millions around the globe. For example, Mugyenyi directs the Joint Clinical Research Center in Kampala, which receives funding from these organizations to bring life-saving antiretroviral therapy to hundreds of thousands of Ugandans. In the following video of Mugyenyi’s talk at Duke, he shares his thoughts on the role of universities in the fight against HIV/AIDS and his hopes and concerns for the future.

Peter Mugyenyi: The Unresolved AIDS Crisis in Africa